Supermax

Are Supermax Prisons an Appropriate Way to Punish Hardened Criminals? Career criminals, who are in and out of prison almost the entirety of their lives, know the roundabouts of the prison and legal systems. Those who work within the Department of Corrections understand the importance and purpose of the security measures that are throughout the prison system. Those who work closely with offenders are put at risk of injury or even death if the proper security measures are not in place. Offenders, who end up in prison, wouldn’t be in that situation if it weren’t for their own actions. If they display behaviors that officials view as disruptive or potentially dangerous, it is appropriate to monitor them under higher security surveillance such…

(BOP) and Professor Daniel P. Mears as it relates to housing criminals in supermax prisons. Gregory L. Hershberger supports supermax prisons conversely Daniel P. Mears claims that supermax prisons prevent prison officials from providing programs or treatment. Supermax prisons a house what prison officials refer to as the worst offenders, however, most offenders are sent there based on their behavior while in prison (Hickey,139). Hershberger wrote an article in Corrections Today in 1998…

Ian Ross states in his article on Supermax prisons, “Supermax residents often develop severe psychological disorders, though, unfortunately, we do not have specific psychological data, per se, on individuals kept in these facilities”(Ross, 2007). Many inmates at these Supermax prisons are suffering mentally. An inmate being held at a Supermax prison was there for a year, which was enough time to have a large effect on Brian Nelson’s mental state. He stopped sleeping; he paced for most of the…

operated to its full potential in what’s known as a supermax prison. A little over twenty years ago supermax prisons were uncommon and unheard of in America. A system that specifically catered to the “worst of the worst” inmates did not start to become commonly used until the mid 1980’s. “Today, over two-thirds of states have supermax facilities that collectively house over 20,000 inmates”. (Mears, 2013, p.686) With such high…

of the nineteenth century along with the rise of the modern penitentiary. Since then, support for the procedure has fluctuated in relation to world events and attitudes. Solitary confinement was on the wane in the early twentieth century, but research about sensory and perceptual deprivation carried out in reaction to the brainwashing of U.S. prisoners of the Korean war caused debates surrounding solitary confinement to resurface in the 1950s.3 As these studies petered out over time, so did the…

I knew that it was a place that no one would ever want to go to because whatever happens, or doesn’t happen, in there will cause some kind of negative outcome. When this project was assigned and I got the opportunity to research any topic that we want, the topic of solitary confinement peaked my interest. I mainly want to know if there are any negative psychological effects of solitary confinement in supermax prisons in the United States. Are these effects severe enough for us to consider…

Piper, gets sent in there. From what I saw, it was difficult to figure out how much time has passed and it became clear that Piper’s state of mind was going in a downward spiral after some time in the SHU. I know that this is just a fictional TV show, but I can assume that it doesn’t stray far from the reality of solitary confinement in supermax prisons throughout the US today. In my prior knowledge of solitary confinement, I knew that it was a place that the “worst of the worst” prisoners get…

practice unconstitutional under the circumstances that an inmate is to be put to death after solitary confinement. At the time, they ruled that the death penalty along with solitary confinement was too great a crime to be acceptable under the 8th Amendment. In 1932, the first Supermax prison, Alcatraz, was opened. Most of the inmates were allowed outside and forced to work. However, there were some who remained in the “D-Block,” the prison’s solitary confinement wing. Inmate Robert Stroud, also…

that the widespread use of prolonged solitary confinement in the United States must be abolished, as the practice is torturously cruel, and routinely works to harm those subjected to it with little benefit to the prison community at large. Prolonged solitary confinement, of the sort routinely used in United States penitentiaries, has clear psychological ramifications, which should label the penalty as unmistakably cruel and unusual. The appalling implications of solitary confinement have been…

isolated from fellow inmates and others. According to the article “Solitarity Confinement Fact” more that 80,000 people in the United States are in solitarity confinement. People can receive solitary confinement for things such as fighting with other inmates, talking back to prison officials, or getting caught with something that they are not supposed to. Some are even placed in isolation when they are not breaking any rules. They are just placed there to separate them from talking to people…